House Rules Committee Blocks Marijuana Amendments in Spending Bills, UN World Drug Report 2024 Released, More... (6/26/24)

A limited therapeutic psilocybin bill has died in the California Assembly, the NCAA ends marijuana testing, and more.

No more marijuana testing for Division I athletes, the NCAA has announced. (Pixabay)

House Rules Committee Blocks All Marijuana Amendments to Three Spending Bills from Getting Floor Votes. The GOP-led House Rules Committee, which determines which amendments get added to which spending bills, has rejected marijuana reform amendments in three separate spending bills -- for the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs.

In all three bills, the committee blocked Rep. Robert Garcia's (D_CA) amendment to stop the covered agencies from testing job applicants in legal marijuana states.

The committee also killed an amendment to the defense spending bill from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) that would have stopped service branches from expelling a servicemember merely for past nonviolent marijuana offenses. In that same bill, the committee also killed an amendment from Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) to allow veterans to access state medical marijuana programs. That amendment is based on Blumenauer's standalone Veterans Equal Access Act, which is already included in another appropriations bill.

Finally, the committee killed an amendment from Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) to block the use of Homeland Security funds for Customs and Border Patrol agents to seize marijuana from state-licensed businesses, as has occurred in his state in recent months.

Earlier this month, this same committee blocked all proposed marijuana amendments -- both pro- and anti-reform -- from the defense spending bill.

NCAA Removes Marijuana from Its Banned Substances List. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) will no longer test Division I athletes for the presence of marijuana, the group announced Tuesday. The move came on a vote of its Division I Council, representing the nation's powerhouse athletic colleges and universities.

"The NCAA drug testing program is intended to focus on integrity of competition, and cannabis products do not provide a competitive advantage," said Council Chair Josh Whitman, athletic director at the University of Illinois. "The council's focus is on policies centered on student-athlete health and well-being rather than punishment for cannabis use."

The NCAA will also void any penalties currently being served by athletes who failed marijuana drug tests.

The NCAA only conducted random drug tests for marijuana products before championship events, such as Division I bowl games. However, the NCAA does not manage the College Football Playoff, which means drug testing policies will be up to the conference that runs it.

During the regular season, the NCAA generally only tests for performance-enhancing drugs. It can still test for those, as well as stimulants and narcotics before championships.

Psychedelics

California Therapeutic Psilocybin Bill Dies. Last year, a psychedelic legalization bill was vetoed by the governor. This year, a therapeutic psychedelics bill died in the legislature. And now, an even more limited bill that would have allowed veterans and retired first responders to use psilocybin under medical supervision, the Heal Our Heroes Act (Senate Bill 803), has died in the legislature.

Bill cosponsors Sens. John Becker (D-Menlo Park) and Brian Jones (R-San Diego) filed the bill after the broader therapeutic psychedelic was blocked in committee. But now, they have withdrawn the bill after it appeared headed for defeat.

"While the Heal Our Heroes Act will not advance in the Assembly Health Committee, it has raised awareness of the work-related trauma and troubling mental health issues our veterans and first responders face after honorably serving our state and country," Becker said. "More than 17 veterans die by suicide each week. This is unacceptable. Our heroes deserve the best care possible."

"The legislature has again failed veterans, first responders, and the 130,000 veteran families that have lost a loved one to suicide," said Jesse Gould, founder of Heroic Hearts Project, a nonprofit that works to further the acceptance of psychedelic therapies for veterans. "We applaud the legislators that supported SB 803 and its previous iterations, and are undeterred in our fight to find effective solutions to reduce veteran suicide and the veteran mental health crisis."

Assembly Health Committee Chair Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) vowed to return to the issue.

"It may well be that psychedelics have the potential to provide significant mental health benefits for those experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, it is also crucial to provide a medical and therapeutic pathway with robust and meaningful regulation so California can be a beacon of leadership on this form of care," Bonta said in a prepared statement. "This issue will undoubtedly remain top of mind for me as I seek to ensure all Californians can access the safest and most effective care possible."

International

UN Annual Report Concedes Marijuana Legalization Shrinks Illicit Market, Notes Arrival of Psychedelic Renaissance. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) marked the occasion of World Drug Day (June 26) by issuing its annual report, World Drug Report 2024, and the report acknowledged some awkward facts for drug prohibitionists.

It acknowledged that marijuana legalization in the US and Canada has probably helped shrink the size of illicit drug markets and led to big drops in people being arrested for marijuana offenses. And it made note of the emergence of a "psychedelic renaissance."

"In some jurisdictions, the size of the illegal cannabis market appears to be shrinking," said a key finding of the report, "and in the United States the number and rate of people arrested for cannabis-related offenses [appears] to be decreasing."

Still, UNODC noted that racial disparities in pot arrests persist and voiced concern about new forms of marijuana products, such as vapes, high-THC concentrates, and infused edibles.

The report noted that as the year began, Canada, Uruguay, and 27 US states and territories had "enacted legal provisions allowing the production and sale of cannabis for non-medical use," while others, such as in Europe, "offer varying degrees of regulated access to cannabis for non-medical use."

The report also acknowledged "a renewed interest in the therapeutic use of different psychedelic substances -- controlled under the international drug conventions -- for the treatment of a range of mental health disorders has sparked a wave of clinical trials. Results from the early stages of ongoing medical research have led to policy changes that have allowed access to psychedelics for 'quasi-therapeutic' use in a couple of jurisdictions in the United States as well as for medical use in Australia and one jurisdiction in Canada," it said.

"Within the broader 'psychedelic renaissance', there are popular movements that are distinct from traditional use by Indigenous communities and are contributing to burgeoning commercial interest and to the creation of an enabling environment that encourages broad access to the unsupervised, 'quasi-therapeutic' and non-medical use of psychedelics," UNODC adds elsewhere in the report, noting that "the impulse to legalize psychedelics seems to be motivated more by the desire for unsupervised therapeutic use within the overall realm of mental health, mindfulness, spirituality, and overall well-being."